Race between vaccines and variants is back on as B.1.617 ... Great article open it up at bottom of page, I just highlighted the part I found more interesting to me..,
Canada lacks 'clear view' of B.1.617
One advantage we had with B.1.1.7 that we don't with B.1.617 was that it was easy to screen for it due to a lucky break — a simple genetic marker that appeared on test samples called an S Gene failure that signalled the variant was likely present.
But with B.1.617 we're not so lucky, and experts say we could be flying blind as cases may be rapidly growing behind the scenes in Canada due to a lack of surveillance.
"We don't have the ability to see it as well as when we're screening for B.1.1.7, because we don't have that quick screening test," said Prof. Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Tuite says researchers have been forced to try to calculate the spread of B.1.617 with "incomplete data," but there are early signs that an "unknown" variant is spreading in the background in Canada.
"All signs point to that being B.1.617, but we don't have a perfectly clear view on what's happening," she said. "The challenge right now is just understanding the extent of the issue and how geographically widespread it is right now."
A recent cluster of COVID-19 in Newfoundland & Labrador that has grown to at least 60 cases was confirmed as being caused by B.1.617, while outbreaks of the variant have also been detected in B.C., Quebec, Alberta and Ontario.
Troy Day, a member of the Ontario Modelling Consensus Table and a mathematician at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., says B.1.617 will likely overtake B.1.1.7 to become the new dominant strain in Ontario by next month.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6053976